Part 17

"All right. We'll build you a four-way fourth-order projector to handle full materializations--four way to handle four attackers in case they get desperate and double their program. With it you will send working images of yourselves into the power rooms of the Chloran ships and clamp a short circuiting field across the secondaries of their converters. Of course they can bar you out with a zone of force if they detect you before you can kill the generators of their zones, but that will be just as good, as far as we're concerned--they can't do a thing as long as they're on, you know. Now put on the headset again and I'll give you the dope on the projector. Better get a recorder, too, as there'll be some stuff that you won't be able to carry in your head."

The recorder was brought in and from Seaton's brain there flowed into it and into the mind of Radnor the fundamental concepts and complete equations and working details of the new instrument. Upon the Valeronian's face was first blank amazement, then dawning comprehension, and lastly sheer, wondering awe as, the plan completed, he removed the headset. He began a confused panegyric of thanks, but Seaton interrupted him briskly.

"'Sall right, Radnor, you'd do the same thing for us if things were reversed. Humanity has got to stick together against all the vermin of all the universes. But, say, I'm getting a yen to see this mess all cleaned up, myself--think I'll stick around and help you build it. You're all in, clear to the neck, but you won't rest until the Chlorans are whipped--I can't blame you for that, I wouldn't either--and I'm fresh as a daisy. Let's go!"

* * * * *

In a few hours the complex machine was done. Radnor and Siblin were seated at two of the sets of controls, associate physicists at the others.

"Since I don't know any more about their system of conversion than you do, I can't tell you in detail what to do," Seaton was issuing final instructions. "But whatever you do, don't monkey with their primaries--shortening them would overload their liberators and blow this whole Solar System over into the next Galaxy. Take time to be dead sure that you've got the secondaries of their main converters, and slap a short circuit on as many of them as you can before they cut you off with a zone. You'll probably find a lot of liberator-converter sets on vessels of that size, but if you can kill the ones that feed the zone generators they're our meat."

"You are much more familiar with such things than we are," Radnor remarked. "Would you not like to come along?"

"I'll say I would, but I can't," Seaton replied instantly. "This isn't me at all, you know. But let's see--"

"Oh, of course," Radnor apologized. "In working with you so long and so cordially I forgot for the moment that you are not here in person."

"Nope, can't be done." Seaton frowned, still immersed in the hitherto unstudied problem of the reprojection of a projected image. "Need over two hundred thousand relays and--um--synchronization--neuro-muscular--not on this outfit. Wonder if it can be done at all? Have to look into it sometime--but excuse me, Radnor, I was thinking and got lost. Ready to go? I'll watch you on the plate here and be ready to offer advice--not that you'll need it. Shoot!"

Radnor snapped on the power and he and his aid shot their projections into one of the opposing fortresses, Siblin and his associate going into the other. Through compartment after compartment of the immense structures the as yet invisible projections went, searching for the power rooms. They were not hard to find, extending as they did nearly the full length of the stupendous structures; vaulted caverns filled with linked pairs of mastodonic fabrications, the liberator-converters.

Springing in graceful arcs from heavily insulated posts in the ends of one machine of each pair were five great bus-bars, which Radnor and Siblin recognized instantly as secondary leads from the converters--the gigantic mechanisms which, taking the raw intra-atomic energy from the liberators, converted it into a form in which it could be controlled and utilized.

Neither Radnor nor Siblin had ever heard of five-phase energy of any kind, but those secondaries were unmistakable. Therefore all four images drove against the fivefold bars their perfectly conducting fields of force. Four converters shrieked wildly, trying to wrench themselves from their foundations; insulation smoked and burst wildly into yellow flame; the stubs of the bars grew white-hot and began to fuse; and in a matter of seconds a full half of each prodigious machine subsided to the floor, a semimolten, utterly useless mass.

Similarly went the next two in each fortress, and the next--then Radnor's two projections were cut off sharply as the Chloran's impenetrable zone of force went on, and that fortress, all its beams and forces inoperative, floated off into space.

Siblin and his partner were more fortunate. When the amœbus commanding their prey threw in his zone switch nothing happened. Its source of power had already been destroyed, and the two Valeronian images went steadily down the line of converters, in spite of everything the ragingly frantic monstrosities could do to hinder their progress.

The terrible beam of destruction held steadily upon that fortress by the beamers in Valeron's mighty dome had never slackened its herculean efforts to pierce the Chloran screens. Now, as more and more of the converters of that floating citadel were burned out those screens began to radiate higher and higher into the ultra-violet. Soon they went down, exposing defenseless metal to the blasting, annihilating fury of the beam, to which any conceivable substance is but little more resistant than so much vacuum.

There was one gigantic, exploding flash, whose unbearable brilliance darkened even the incandescent radiance of the failing screen, and Valeron's mighty beam bored on, unimpeded. And where that mastodonic creation had floated an instant before there were only a few curling wisps of vapor.

"Nice job of clean-up, boys--fine!" Seaton clapped a friendly hand upon Radnor's shoulder. "Anybody can handle them now. Better you take a week off and catch up on sleep. I could do with a little shut-eye myself, and you've been on the job a lot longer than I have."

"But hold on--don't go yet!" Radnor exclaimed in consternation. "Why, our whole race owes its very existence to you--wait at least until our Bardyle can have a word with you!"

"That isn't necessary, Radnor. Thanks just the same, but I don't go in for that sort of thing, any more than you would. Besides, we'll be here in the flesh in a few days and I'll talk to him then. So long!" and the projection disappeared.

* * * * *

In due time _Skylark Two_ came lightly to a landing in a parkway near the council hall, to be examined curiously by an excited group of Valeronians who wondered audibly that such a tiny space ship should have borne their salvation. The four Terrestrials, sure of their welcome, stepped out and were greeted by Siblin, Radnor, and the Bardyle.

"I must apologize, sir, for my cavalier treatment of you at our previous meeting." Seaton's first words to the coördinator were in sincere apology. "I trust that you will pardon it, realizing that something of the kind was necessary in order to establish communication."

"Speak not of it, Richard Seaton. I suffered only a temporary inconvenience, a small thing indeed compared to the experience of encountering a mind of such stupendous power as yours. Neither words nor deeds can express to you the profound gratitude of our entire race for what you have done for Valeron.

"I am informed that you personally do not care for extravagant praise, but please believe me to be voicing the single thought of a world's people when I say that no words coined by brain of man could be just, to say nothing of being extravagant, when applied to you. I do not suppose that we can do anything, however slight, for you in return, in token that these are not entirely empty words?"

"You certainly can, sir," Seaton made surprising answer. "We are so completely lost in space that without a great deal of material and of mechanical aid we shall never be able to return to, nor even to locate in space, our native Galaxy, to say nothing of our native planet."

A concerted gasp of astonishment was his reply, then he was assured in no uncertain terms that the resources of Valeron were at his disposal.

A certain amount of public attention had of course to be endured; but Seaton and Crane, pleading a press of work upon their new projectors, buried themselves in Radnor's laboratory, leaving it to their wives to bear the brunt of Valeronian adulation.

"How do you like being a heroine, Dot?" Seaton asked one evening, as the two women returned from an unusually demonstrative reception in another city.

"We just revel in it, since we didn't do any of the real work--it's just too perfectly gorgeous for words," Dorothy replied shamelessly. "Especially Peggy." She eyed Margaret mischievously and winked furtively at Seaton. "Why, you ought to see her--she could just simply roll that stuff up on a fork and eat it, as though it were that much soft fudge!"

Since the scientific and mechanical details of the construction of a fifth-order projector have been given in full elsewhere there is no need to repeat them here. Seaton built his neutronium lens in the core of the near-by white dwarf star, precisely as Rovol had done it from distant Norlamin. He brought it to Valeron and around it there began to come into being a duplicate of the immense projector which the Terrestrials had been obliged to leave behind them when they abandoned gigantic _Skylark Three_ to plunge through the fourth dimension in tiny _Two_.

"Maybe it's none of my business, Radnor," Seaton turned to the Valeronian curiously during a lull in their work, "but how come you're still simply shooting away those Chloran vessels by making them put out their zones of force? Why didn't you hop over there on your projector and blow their whole planet over into the next Solar System? I would have done that long ago if it had been me, I think."

"We did visit Chlora once, with something like that in mind, but our attempt failed lamentably," Radnor admitted sheepishly. "You remember that peculiar special sense, that mental force that Siblin tried to describe to you? Well, it was altogether too strong for us. My father, possessing one of the strongest minds of Valeron, was in the chair, but they mastered him so completely that we had to recall the projection by cutting off the power to prevent them from taking from his mind by force the methods of transmission which you taught us and which we were then using."

"Hmm! So that's it, huh?" Seaton was greatly interested. "Maybe I'll take one on the chin, but I'm going to lock horns with that bunch of squidges myself, one of these days. When this projector gets itself done I'll skip over there and try them a whirl--with this fifth-order outfit I think maybe I'll be able to make big medicine on them."

* * * * *

True to his word, Seaton's first use of the new mechanism was to assume the offensive. He first sought out and destroyed the Chloran structure then in space--now an easy task, since zones of force, while impenetrable to any ether-borne phenomena, offer no resistance whatever to forces of the fifth order, propagated as they are in that inner medium, the sub-ether. Then, with the Quedrins standing by, to cut off the power in case he should be overpowered, he invaded the sanctum sanctorum of all Chlora--the private office of the Supreme Great One himself--and stared unabashed and unaffected into the enormous "eye" of the monstrous ruler of the planet.

There ensued a battle royal. Had mental forces been visible, it would have been a spectacular meeting indeed! Larger and larger grew the "eye" until it was transmitting all the terrific power generated by that frightful, visibly palpitating brain. But Seaton was not of Valeron, nor was he handicapped by the limitations of a fourth-order projector. He was now being projected upon a full beam of the fifth, by a mechanism able to do full justice to his stupendously composite brain.

The part of that brain he was now employing was largely the contribution of Drasnik, the First of Psychology of ancient Norlamin; and from it he was hurling along that beam the irresistible sum total of mental power accumulated by ten thousand generations of the most profound students of the mind that our Galaxy has ever known.

The creature, realizing that at long last it had met its mental master, must have emitted radiations of distress, for into the room came crowding hordes of the monstrosities, each of whom sought to add his own mind to those already opposing the intruder. In vain--all their power could not turn Seaton's penetrating glare aside, nor could it wrest from that glare's unbreakable grip the mind of the tortured Great One.

And now, mental waves failing, they resorted to the purely physical. Hand rays of highest power blasted at that figure uselessly; fiercely driven bars, spears, axes, and all other weapons rebounded from it without leaving a mark upon it, rebounded bent, broken, and twisted. For that figure was in no sense matter as we understand the term. It was pure force--force made palpable and coherent by the incomprehensible power of disintegrating matter; force against which any possible application of mechanical power would be precisely as effective as would wafted thistledown against Gibraltar.

Thus the struggle was brief. Paying no attention to anything, mental or physical, that the other monstrosities could bring to bear, Seaton compelled his victim to assume the shape of the heretofore-despised human being. Then, staring straight into that quivering brain through those hate-filled, flaming eyes, he spoke aloud, the better to drive home his thought:

"Learn, so-called Great One, once and for all, that when you attack any race of humanity anywhere, you attack not only that one race, but all the massed humanity of all the planets of all the Galaxies! As you have already observed, I am not of the planet Valeron, nor of this Solar System, nor even of this Galaxy; but I and my fellows have come to the aid of this race of humanity whom you were bold enough to attack.

"I have proved that we are your masters, mentally as well as scientifically and mechanically. Those of you who have been attacking Valeron have been destroyed, ships and crews alike. Those en route there have been destroyed in space. So also shall be destroyed any and all expeditions you may launch beyond the limits of your own foul atmosphere.

"Since even such a repellent civilization as yours must have its place in the great scheme of things, we do not intend to destroy your planet nor such of your people as remain upon it or near it, unless such destruction shall become necessary for the welfare of the human race. While we are considering what we shall do about you, I advise you to heed well this warning!"

XXI.

The four Terrestrials had discussed at some length the subject of Chlora and her outlandish population.

"It looks as though you were perched upon the horns of a first-class dilemma," Dorothy remarked at last. "If you let them alone there is no telling what harm they will do to these people here, and yet it would be a perfect shame to kill them all--they can't help being what they are. Do you suppose you can figure a way out of it, Dick?"

"Maybe--I've got a kind of a hunch, but it hasn't jelled into a workable idea yet. It's tied in with the sixth-order projection that we'll have to have, anyway, to find our way back home with. Until we get that working I guess we'll just let the amœbuses stew in their own juice."

"Well, and then what?" Dorothy prompted.

"I told you it's nebulous yet, with a lot of essential details yet to be filled in--" Seaton paused, then went on, doubtfully: "It's pretty wild--I don't know whether--"

"Now you _must_ tell us about it, Dick," Margaret urged.

"I'll say you've got to," Dorothy agreed. "You've had a lot of ideas wild enough to make any sane creature's head spin around in circles before this, but not one of them was so hair raising that you were backward in talking about it. This one must be the prize brain storm of the universe--spill it to us!"

"All right, but remember that it's only half baked and that you asked for it. I'm doping out a way of sending them back to their own Solar System, planet and all."

"What!" exclaimed Margaret.

Dorothy simply whistled--a long, low whistle highly eloquent of incredulity.

"Maintenance of temperature? Time? Power? Control?" Crane, the imperturbable, picked out unerringly the four key factors of the stupendous feat.

"Your first three objections can be taken care of easily enough," Seaton replied positively. "No loss of temperature is possible through a zone of force--our own discovery. We can stop time with a stasis--we learned that from watching those four-dimensional folks work. The power of cosmic radiation is practically infinite and eternal--we learned how to use that from the pure intellectuals. Control is the sticker, since it calls for computations and calculations at present impossible; but I believe that when we get our mechanical brain done, it will be able to work out even such a problem as that."

"What d'you mean, mechanical brain?" demanded Dorothy.

"The thing that is going to run our sixth-order projector," Seaton explained. "You see, it'll be altogether too big and too complicated to be controlled manually, and thought--human thought, at least--is on one band of the sixth order. Therefore the logical thing to do is to build an artificial brain capable of thinking on _all_ bands of the order instead of only one, to handle the whole projector. See?"

"No," declared Dorothy promptly, "but maybe I will, though, when I see it work. What's next on the program?"

"Well, it's going to be quite a job to build that brain and we'd better be getting at it, since without it there'll be no _Skylark Four_--"

"Dick, I object!" Dorothy protested vigorously. "_The Skylark of Space_ was a nice name--"

"Sure, you'd think so, since you named her yourself," interrupted Seaton in turn, with his disarming grin.

"Keep still a minute, Dickie, and let me finish. _Skylark Two_ was pretty bad, but I stood it; and by gritting my teeth all out of shape I did manage to keep from squawking about _Skylark Three_, but I certainly am not going to stand for _Skylark Four_. Why, just think of giving a name like that to such a wonderful thing as she is going to be--as different as can be from anything that has ever been dreamed of before--just as though she were going to be simply one more of a long series of cup-challenging motor boats or something! Why, it's--it's just too perfectly idiotic for words!"

"But she's _got_ to be some kind of a _Skylark_, Dot--you know that."

"Yes, but give her a name that means something--that sounds like something. Name her after this planet, say--_Skylark of Valeron_--how's that?"

"O.K. by me. How about it, Peg? Mart?"

The Cranes agreed to the suggestion with enthusiasm and Seaton went on:

"Well, an onion by any other name would smell as sweet, you know, and it's going to be just as much of a job to build the _Skylark of Valeron_ as it would have been to build _Skylark Four_. Therefore, as I have said before and am about to say again, we'd better get at it."

The fifth-order projector was moved to the edge of the city, since nowhere within its limits was there room for the structure to be built, and the two men seated themselves at its twin consoles and their hands flew over its massed banks of keyboards. For a few minutes nothing happened; then on the vast, level plain before them--a plain which had been a lake of fluid lava a few weeks before--there sprang into being an immense foundation-structure of trussed and latticed girder frames of inoson, the hardest, strongest, and toughest form of matter possible to molecular structure. One square mile of ground it covered and it was strong enough, apparently, to support a world.

* * * * *

When the foundation was finished, Seaton left the framework to Crane, while he devoted himself to filling the interstices and compartments as fast as they were formed. He first built one tiny structure of coils, fields, and lenses of force--one cell of the gigantic mechanical brain which was to be. He then made others, slightly different in tune, and others, and others.

He then set forces to duplicating these cells, forces which automatically increased in number until they were making and setting five hundred thousand cells per second, all that his connecting forces could handle. And everywhere, it seemed, there were projectors, fields of force, receptors and converters of cosmic energy, zones of force, and many various shaped lenses and geometric figures of neutronium incased in sheaths of faidon.

From each cell led tiny insulated wires, so fine as to be almost invisible, to the "nerve centers" and to one of the millions of projectors. From these in turn ran other wires, joining together to form larger and larger strands until finally several hundred enormous cables, each larger than a man's body, reached and merged into an enormous, glittering, hemispherical, mechano-electrical inner brain.

For forty long Valeronian days--more than a thousand of our Earthly hours--the work went on ceaselessly, day and night. Then it ceased of itself and there dangled from the center of the glowing, gleaming hemisphere a something which is only very vaguely described by calling it either a heavily wired helmet or an incredibly complex headset. It was to be placed over Seaton's head, it is true--it _was_ a headset, but one raised to the millionth power.

It was the energizer and controller of the inner brain, which was in turn the activating agency of that entire cubic mile of as yet inert substance, that assemblage of thousands of billions of cells, so soon to become the most stupendous force for good ever to be conceived by the mind of man.

When that headset appeared Seaton donned it and sat motionless. For hour after hour he sat there, his eyes closed, his face white and strained, his entire body eloquent of a concentration so intense as to be a veritable trance. At the end of four hours Dorothy came up resolutely, but Crane waved her back.

"This is far and away the most crucial point of the work, Dorothy," he cautioned her gravely. "While I do not think that anything short of physical violence could distract his attention now, it is best not to run any risk of disturbing him. An interruption now would mean that everything would have to be done over again from the beginning."

Something over an hour later Seaton opened his eyes, stretched prodigiously, and got up. He was white and trembling, but tremendously relieved and triumphant.

"Why, Dick, what have you been doing? You look like a ghost!" Dorothy was now an all solicitous wife.

"I've been _thinking_, and if you don't believe that it's hard work you'd better try it some time! 'Sall right, though, I won't have to do it any more--got a machine to do my thinking for me now."

"Oh, is it all done?"

"Nowhere near, but it's far enough along so that it can finish itself. I've just been telling it what to do."

"_Telling_ it! Why, you talk as though it were human!"